darkness will be rewritten
by DaughterOfPoseidon333
Summary: "I had this dream...that I was an Avenger". Natasha Romanoff is an Avenger, and this is where she makes her stand. ***Major Endgame Spoilers***


**This is not a fix-it fic. I'm sorry. The fix-it fic is coming though! I don't know when, but I'm just about done outlining it, and will hopefully get it up soon!**

**So, I've got a lot of thoughts on Endgame. I saw it twice opening weekend, and the stuff I loved about it, I really loved. But the stuff I didn't like, I'm really, really disappointed about. So I don't totally feel closure for everyone. If you're reading this fic, I'm assuming you've seen the movie. Basically, I'm pretty unhappy with Steve and Natasha's endings. Individually, together, I'm just feeling really sad and bitter. Not even from a shipping standpoint necessarily, but their friendship i feel like was sidelined in this movie. Natasha was so kickass in this film, and then they killed her. She deserved to be on that final battlefield. As an Avenger, she deserved that. Or at the very fucking least she deserved a funeral. She didn't even get a proper good-bye and I'm pissed about it.**

**Steve's ending...I have a lot of thoughts on. I felt it in my heart the first time I saw the movie that there was something that didn't sit right with me about his ending. That's a whole essay's worth of thoughts that I won't get into here, especially because I know it's kinda controversial. But, as a huge Steve fan, I don't feel closure for his character. I feel kind of let down. Again, I have a lot of thoughts. Hit me up on tumblr if you wanna chat about it!**

**But anyway! Notes on this actual fic. This is a Natasha character study that's canon compliant for Endgame. This is me getting some feelings out, and also trying to honor her. I didn't include Tony or Steve's canon arcs, because I'm immensely satisfied (though sad) with Tony's ending, so I didn't feel the need to write too much on that. And since I'm so dissatisfied with Steve's ending, I chose to leave him for my fix-it fic.**

**So please enjoy this Natasha fic. She deserves all the love. I love her (and Tony and all of them) 3000. *cue me crying***

**Title is from Sleeping at Last's song "I'll Keep You Safe".**

**Enjoy! Or cry. Or both.**

**-:-**

Twenty-two days of waiting, of counting the missing, watching the numbers around the world climb higher and higher, until they weren't just the missing, but the Vanished. Twenty-two days of waiting on news from Carol Danvers, who was scouring the galaxy looking for answers, and for any sign of Tony Stark or the others that had disappeared into space nearly a month ago.

Natasha had been dreaming about aliens and ash and the snap of Thanos' fingers for every single one of those days.

Steve found her up in the middle of the night far too often, sitting on one of the common room couches with her legs pulled up to her chest as she tried to come up with something, _anything_ to reverse the clock. He didn't push and ask her what was wrong—he already knew. Because it was the same thoughts, the same nightmares swirling around in his own head. She knew because the exhaustion and loss in his eyes reflected her own. He just sat with her in the quiet until the beginning rays of dawn either urged them to try and sleep a little longer or pushed them into starting their day.

Steve shaved his beard the same night they got Tony back. And for a moment, Natasha could see them as they were, as they used to be—together, a team. In that moment, she could also see a glimmer of hope.

They were reunited with Tony, Nebula had given them a lead on Thanos, and now they had Carol. They could _do this_. She believed that. She had to believe that.

Steve took out his compass after they boarded the Benatar, something he did when he needed to feel grounded or needed guidance.

_This I gonna work, Steve_, she assured him. He was wearing his stealth suit, the one SHIELD had given him years ago. She felt a pang of nostalgia seeing him in it. It seemed so long ago now that their biggest problem had been SHIELD crumbling down around them. Now half the world had crumbled away into dust, and Natasha was trying damned hard not to fall apart, too.

_I know it is. Because I don't know what I'm gonna do if it doesn't_.

They strapped in, and Natasha tried not to think of all the people left on Earth counting on them, tried to focus on the thrill of going to _space_. She tried to focus on the mission, on seeing this through, clinging to that shred of hope in her chest.

But just like that, it was gone.

_I used the stones to destroy the stones._

Thanos didn't even have to snap his fingers. Her hope—completely and utterly _gone_. With those words, her already fragile world tipped towards the shattering point. Her eyes, which she'd thought couldn't shed any more tears, burned. Thanos' head lay bloody on the ground with the last chance they'd had to bring everyone back.

Natasha barely felt it when Steve laid a hand on her back and gently guided her out the door of Thanos' cottage. Thor was in the middle of the field they'd set the Benatar down in. Even after they were all aboard, the God of Thunder didn't move for a long, long time.

Silence settled in around them, and she supposed it was something she would have to get used to.

She looked over at Steve, wishing desperately that he had something to say, that his brilliant tactical mind was already working towards a back-up plan. But her partner, her friend, the man she trusted so absolutely…he was staring down at his hands like he was looking for something to hold onto.

No compass would guide him, and she had no more hope left to give him.

-:-

Her red hair started to slowly grow back and an official census of the living and the gone was put out.

Thor disappeared pretty much as soon as they'd gotten back to Earth, and once Tony was a little bit healthier, he and Pepper had gone, too.

_I just can't be here, not—not right now, _Tony told her as he waited for Pepper to pull the car around for them.

_I know_, she'd told him, hating the way her eyes burned.

And she did understand. They'd all lost so much, and the tensions from before—the battle in the airport that felt like it had been a million years ago—were still there, still burning like embers below the surface. Yes, she understood why Tony had to go. But he was her friend, and she'd just gotten him back.

He'd kissed her temple and said softly, _I just need a little bit of time. I'll give you a call when I'm ready_.

She watched him and Pepper go until long after the dust had settled on the driveway. One less person to make noise around the compound.

Rhodey stayed with Tony a lot those first months. Bruce left, too, three months after their failure in the Garden. He'd given her a long glance as he'd made his way out the door, one that she couldn't return in the same way.

That talk in the bedroom also felt like it belonged to a different time, a different person, a different version of herself.

_I had this dream…that I was an Avenger. _

She didn't feel like much of anything now. She just stood, staring at the doorway, like if she concentrated hard enough, somebody, something, would come through with a solution. A way to reverse what had happened. Or maybe just a way to make it all hurt less.

Natasha would've known it was Steve's footsteps behind her even if he wasn't the only one left in the compound with her.

Without turning to look at him she said, "Are you going to leave too?"

He was silent for a long minute, long enough that she finally turned slowly, looking up at his face.

Meeting her eyes, he tried offering her a smile. "Nah, you're stuck with me."

She didn't tell him how relieved she was to not be alone.

-:-

Months turned into years.

They'd tried to find some semblance of normalcy. What was left of the world had found a way to keep moving forward, so Natasha tried to as well. Steve switched between staying at the compound and a place he'd found in the city. She missed having him around all the time, but she had enough of a daily routine at this point that it was okay. She kept in touch with Carol and Rocket and Nebula. She saw Rhodey all the time, and sometime during that first year, Tony had let her visit the lake house he and Pepper had found.

He'd let her meet his daughter after she was born, and that day had been one of the happiest and saddest days of her life. Morgan Stark was a light in all the darkness that had fallen, and she represented Natasha had even wished for Tony. But Natasha also couldn't help but think of all the people who were gone and didn't get to meet that beautiful baby girl.

Natasha put everything she had left of her heart into running what was left of the Avengers, and into finding a solution. Her hope was either spread thin or completely gone, depending on the day, but she tried. She _tried_.

She was an Avenger and she had to take a stand. This was where she had chosen to stand.

_I used to have nothing, _she told Steve, five years since Thanos, on a day that had pretty much been as miserable as the rest. He tried, too. To joke with her, to make her laugh or smile in any way he could. She was pretty sure he did it for himself as much as he did for her. To try and remind himself that this was the life they had now, and that they had to survive somehow. She was grateful for it. More grateful than she'd ever be able to express that he'd been by her side through everything.

_Then I got this family_.

Steve was her family. The Avengers were her family. And for everyone that wasn't there, she had to keep pushing forward. Had to keep moving, otherwise she would drown.

_I think we both need to get a life_, Steve quipped, a hint of that old playfulness and defiant fire in his eyes.

_You first_.

-:-

Scott had given them _hope_. Something real and concrete to work with. Not just some figment of her imagination, not just some dream.

A dream. _She had this dream…_

It was small, that hope, and she tucked it into a corner of her heart where she didn't dare let it get too big. But it was there nonetheless, glowing, filling her with more purpose than she'd had in five years.

She would figure this out, no matter what it took.

And for the first time in five years, her days became busy, filled with people and productivity and she started to feel like herself again. They started to piece things together bit by bit, until the had a completed puzzle to look at. A _plan_. To get everyone they lost back.

Piece by piece, they drew back together. Tony came, Thor came, Clint came. She'd taken his hand and he'd followed. She'd allowed her hope to grow big enough to share it with him.

The night before they were set to go, Steve sat down beside her on the couch and offered her a beer. He, like her, looked more alive than they had in a long, long time. There were plenty of risks involved with this—but they had a _chance_. And she believed in them.

"You did this, you know," Steve said quietly, and her heart caught in her throat at the pride in his eyes.

She tipped her beer at him. "Pretty sure it was Scott and that ugly van of his."

Steve chuckled and it was like music to her ears. "Well, yeah. We wouldn't have been able to do this without him, the time travel thing. But _you_…" he trailed off, giving her a soft look. "You've been here the whole time. You never gave up. Scott wouldn't have had anyone to come to if you hadn't been here."

Natasha swallowed, gripping her beer bottle a little tighter. This man in front of her, who she'd known for eleven years now…he was her partner and her family and her best friend, and she was pretty sure he was one of the biggest reasons she hadn't given up in the past five years.

She smiled at him, then. It was the biggest, most genuine smile to light up her face in ages. She reached over and grabbed his free hand.

"This is gonna work, Steve," she said softly, echoing what she'd told him five years ago.

He squeezed her hand, fingers warm against her own. "I know."

-:-

She believed it with her whole heart that they would succeed.

Her heart was racing as they stood on the platform of the quantum portal. She looked to her right, smiling at Steve, and he smiled back.

"See you in a minute."

-:-

It was nice to have Clint by her side again, in the twilight of that alien world. The snow and the cold and the air looked so familiar, but felt different all the same.

And when the robed man appeared and revealed his red face, he was familiar and different at the same time, too. She knew from old war footage and Steve's own stories who he was—the Red Skull. Just not the Red Skull Steve had known.

No, as the messenger, he was almost worse.

Nebula had said this place, this mountaintop was where Thanos had killed her sister, Gamora. But Nebula had said she didn't know everything that had transpired here. Only that Thanos came back with the Soul Stone, and Gamora didn't.

But now the final piece fell into place.

_A soul for a soul_.

She sat down, and Clint paced. It was like old times, sitting in Fury's office for a debriefing. Clint had never been able to sit still. Always moving, always analyzing, and yet, he couldn't seem to put this one together. Or he didn't want to.

But she had.

She knew her choice. So many years, before and after The Snap, spent trying to make right all her wrongs, trying to wipe her ledger clean of all that red…the choice came to her as easy as breathing. So many times, there had been no choice for her. No options, no other way out. She'd had to obey. But now…_now _she could choose. And looking at Clint, picturing his family, Laura and the kids and the spark in his eyes as she offered him a kernel of hope in the rains of Tokyo. Well, it was easy.

_I had this dream…that I was an Avenger_.

This was no dream. This was real.

This was where she made her stand.

As Natasha, as an Avenger.

_She was an Avenger_.

_Whatever it takes_, she told Clint, what Steve had told all of them before they'd launched back in time. She'd promised Steve this would work. She would _make sure it worked_.

Natasha took a breath as Clint touched his forehead to hers. She gripped his arms, and she pictured the faces of her family. She thought of Steve, of Tony, of all those they'd lost. She thought of two little headstones by a chain-link fence.

_We have what we have when we have it_.

It felt like a lifetime ago that she and Steve had stood together in that empty church. This is what she had right now—this choice.

She took another breath, knowing it might be one of her last. She knew Clint would try to stop her, knew that his guilt and grief and loss would make him lunge for that cliff's edge.

They fought their way there, and when he knocked her down with a blast from one of his arrows, she nearly screamed. She couldn't let him do this—this was _her _choice, her chance. He'd saved her, all those years ago, and now this was it.

Her final act. One last page in her ledger to clear.

So Natasha took that jump after him, catching him as she attached her wire to his belt, catching them as they fell. They stopped, dangling against the side of the cliff, the bottom still far, far below.

"_Damn you_," Clint whispered, holding onto her with everything he had.

She was in position to fall.

She was an Avenger, and she could _do this_. For those she loved—for Clint and Steve and the rest of her family…she could do this. She knew Steve would make sure they got the rest of the stones. She knew it in her bones, in her soul.

And she was at peace.

"Let me go,"

Clint had tears in his eyes, but for the first time in so long, Natasha didn't feel like crying.

"_No_," he pleaded. "Please, no."

She gave him a small smile, trying to show him that she wasn't afraid.

"It's okay."

_Please_, he begged her.

Then Natasha kicked off—and let go.

There was the familiar sensation of falling, the swoop of her gut, heart climbing into her throat. There was no parachute to catch her this time. Clint was hanging from the cliff, fading into the distance with his hand still reaching for her.

She fell and fell—

Then there was nothing but white, and then black. Not a hint of red to be seen.

**-:-**

**Just another reminder, fix-it fic is coming! It will be a sequel to my last fic, 'revelations (come to us in recovery)". Which, if any of you read that, thank you so so so much! The reviews I have gotten on that fic are some of the best I've ever received, and I love all you readers 3000.**


End file.
